RAF requires that person to send you the 10 day trial btw.  You then become linked to their account for 90 days.  Also, to get the xp bonus they have to be near you on a char in the same level range.  

Similar story here. During our rout from Geminate I was very busy with a lot of real world work, and realized that 0.0 took more commitment than I could handle. I managed to get into a few of the larger battles, but on the whole I was inactive and ended up handing off a number of my ships to anyone who could fly them out, rather than trying to sell them off at poor prices to Solar itself. I ended up leaving WI for a casual/working adult corporation where my inactivity couldn't be a liability.

On the other hand, he can create an account, play on that alone for a few days, then if he likes it he can be RAF'd and choose the server (esp if he goes PvP and decides he hates PvP servers, or the other way around, not that there is that much world PvP low level). 

But, yes, if you start the trial if you want to be RAF'd you're going to have to restart your account.

Thanks for the tips, hedige/nana. 

So, you have to choose a specific server though?  I can't just move from one to another if I want or am I stuck on a PvP one if I choose that, etc?

You can have 10 characters per realm/server, up to 50 in total per account.

If you want to transfer a pre-existing character to another server, it's $25 (unless you are migrating from a high population server to a low population server, it's then free). 

If you have RAF, it's typically better to just re-create your char and play for 5 hours and be done with it  

There are "New Player" servers but, again, recommend RAF'ing over that. 

The difference between PvP and PvE is that on a PvP server you have the ability to kill members of the opposite faction if you see them.

This can be frustrating (80s raping lowbies), but it can also be fun (impromptu duels of roughly equal levels, or killing another character over a resource node). Since you'll be able to fly in Azeroth in 10 hours, lowbie areas may be prone to "death from above". Especially since some of the high-level content is really close to low level content. Once you get to level 58 you can travel to Outland, however, and once you're there there you can fly as well so if you see an 80 you can just take off, plus mostly the only 80s in Outland are just farming reputation or gathering resource nodes unlike in Azeroth where they may be nearby questing. 

I'm not sure what steps Blizzard has taken to prevent high level characters from raping lowbies while they are questing. I have seen level 85 elites posted around the starting areas, and there is a flying guard over major cities. But if you're questing out in the open plains, I think you're out of luck. 

I'm on a PvP server and I'm happy about it. 

Having played both EVE and WoW, I thought I'd mention that they are EXTREMELY different games. I wouldn't necesarily assume that because you like one that you will like the other. EVE (at least when I played it which was a long time ago) is more similar to a simulation style game, by which I mean you are given more freedom to do whatever you want in the universe and face the consequences. To some extent players make their own gameplay by forming corporations and pirating each other and the focus is more on creating a huge world where everything interacts then necesarrily being fun for the average player. When I played there was no story or quests or anything like that, just a giant world populated by the players who often created their own drama (though not always in a good way). That may have changed by now.

WoW is kind of the opposite, it's extremely structured, well paced and fun for the average player with lots of quests and stories and things to accomplish but nothing you do is really going to effect the world in any dramatic way (although the game does a good job of making it seem like you are in some cases).

Thanks for all that feedback too, fadedC. 

Ya it's $25 to move an existing char.  However, the servers are pretty large.. so unless you have a reallly good reason to transfer, it's not really necessary (one server I was on was overpopulated, and we transferred as a guild to a new one for free.  The other transfer I did was paid to go to top 10 world guild).

While it's true you might get death from above now in low level zones, it's also important to know that several zones are horde or alliance specific and if you don't enable pvp you won't be ganked.  Anyway, I would highly suggest pvp server.. it's a lot of fun

Also, if you want, I can recruit a friend you, you can activate your account code, and then scroll of resurrect me and we would each get a month of free game time lol (you would have 10 days + 2 months free).

Only available today.. otherwise I'm going to give someone else I know who plays the option to resurrect me / free month.

So is there any kind of significant PvE play in Eve? It always reads like a PvP oriented game.

What's your definition of significant? PvP is what's most apparent, but depending on your tastes there's lots to PvE. Not to mention, PvP is generally supported by PvE, you need to make money to get ships to fight with

PvE isn't generally what's advertised or talked about but it is there. In heaps. It's just that the PvE isn't really unique in the same sense that the PvP is.

General PvE consists largely of:

1) Missioning. This is the most prevalent form of PvE, and is essentially randomly selected quests. They come in different forms, such as trade missions, courier missions, combat missions, mining missions, and storyline missions. Of these combat missions are the most rewarding, most popular, and generally the most fun. They are also, barring other players, the only ones that involve any danger.

Storyline missions come in the form of the other 4 types, but are worth much more and have more profound impact on your faction standings.

Missions are given out by NPC corporation agents which are seeded throughout the galaxy. You essentially have to work your way up the corporate ladder by doing missions for lower level agents, then mid, then high, etc. There are a number of addition factors that influence the rewards, such as your corporate standing, individual agent standing, skills, and the security status of the system the mission takes place in. (Doing missions in low-security space pays more, but you will have to keep an eye out for other players who may wish to kill you.)

There are also Epic Story Arcs, which are fairly new to Eve. They are a chain of connected missions which are geared towards delivering a consistent narrative (Not just: Pirates have attacked transport X, go save it!) and generally end with a large pay-out at the completion.

Missions also supply you with Loyalty Points (LP) which can be redeemed at any station owned by the issuer's corporation for stronger ammunition, improved ship modules, blueprints, implants, faction ships (which are expensive as heck, but vastly superior) etc etc etc. Each corporation has it's own LP store, and offers different rewards.

As I said before, Missioning is # 1. It pays well, the danger is minimal, and the LP can be easily converted into valuable goods which can be resold.

2) Salvaging. Generally a mini-profession within missioning. With the right skills and equipment, you can salvage the wrecks of ships. While most salvage isn't worth much, you do accumulate a large amount of it, and the odd pieces are quite valuable. What's more, savage from more advanced player ships (tech 2 ships) is quite valuable. Salvage is used to create rigs, which are "permanent" modules that can be placed in a ship to boost it in one area at the expense of another (More armour, less speed, etc.)

3)Mining. The #2. It's not combat oriented, but it's a huge part of Eve, and with the right skills, ship, and mind-set (or a movie playing on a second monitor) it can pull in a hefty amount of ore. You can use this ore to build ships, modules, etc, or you can sell it on the market. While this is a huge aspect of Eve, it really not much to talk about.

4)Trading. Again non-combat, though some people do refer to it as "Market PvP." This is, for dedicated and patient players, an easy way to turn a very decent buck. There's a number of things that you can do... supplying needy markets, or snagging especially low-priced items and reselling them. Heck, I know a couple people who scan the contracts constantly, looking for items the seller forgot to add a couple 0's to, and then resell it for the proper price.

5)Exploration. This one, like missions, comes in a number of different varieties. Some exploration sites are pure combat, others have valuable asteroid fields/gas clouds to mine after you have cleared the pirates guarding them, others have derelict wrecks you have to hack (another mini-profession) to get at the goods inside them.

Exploration is more involved than mission running, and tends to be a lot more hit and miss. First off, you have to scan down the sites, which involves triangulating their position within a system using three or more probes. as you get pings, you move the probes around, decreasing their scanning radius and homing in on the signature. Sometimes you will come across a great multi-stage escalation with fantastic faction blue-prints at the end. Other times you will spend 40 minutes trying to pin down a single signature only to find out when you get there that another player is just clearing it out, or it's a gas cloud when you really wanted some combat.

Exploration also scales depending on the security status of the system the site is in. The more dangerous the system, the more dangerous (and much much more rewarding) the site generally is. One of the big pushes behind alliances controlling 0.0 systems is so they can monopolize access to particularly bountiful exploration sites.

6)Wormholes. These are another newer addition. Wormholes can be found through exploration, and lead to "unknown space," which serve as isolated systems with limited and constantly fluctuating access points. Wormholes have a mass and time limit before they collapse, which generally regulates the size of ships (and the number of) which may pass through them, with lower-level wormholes not allowing much through, while larger ones can support battleship fleets.

Wormholes are quite profitable if you do it right. The NPCs you face (called Sleepers) have enhanced AI and other tricks which make them more dangerous, but the salvage and items they might drop cannot be aquired anywhere else and are worth a considerable sum. Additionally, wormholes have unique gasses to be harvested, and large amounts of valuable asteroids.

A lot of corporations like to set up shop in wormholes because of how isolated they are, but they come with inherent risks. If you're there with some buddies and the only guy packing a scanner/bookmarked the exit gets taken out, the rest of you are stuck until a) some stranger with a scanner happens by and takes you to the exit (extremely unlikely) or you all self-destruct. So always remember to bookmark the exit!

Additionally, unlike the rest of space, "unknown space" doesn't give you a list of the players currently in system with you. You might not realize there are others about until they have you locked and jammed.

7)Industry/Research. I won't go heavily into this as it is what you would expect. You can build anything if you have the right minerals and a blueprint. Researching involves upgrading blueprints to speed production, or reduce the needed minerals.

And, quickly:

8)Ratting. Another combat oriented form of PvE. Asteroid belts are often guarded by a small number of NPC pirates (or "rats," hence "ratting"). Ratting entails looping from belt to belt and destroying any pirates you find for their bounties. This is only really worth it in 0.0 space, where you face pirate battleships. In high security systems you can make more money doing almost anything else.

There's more than that, actually, but I've gone on long enough.

Exploration has gotten revamped and is a lot less, well, bothersome. It's pretty fun to do now. Scan times are very short (~10 seconds, some variance for skills), you only need to use one probe type (its scan strength increases when you set it for shorter range scans), and cov ops get nice scanning bonuses. It really only takes a couple minutes to lock down a site, and it usually tells you the type of the site before you get your 100% match so if it's yet another wormhole or gas cloud you can just ignore that result and not spend the time getting a 100% hit

To add to the industry section, you can also "invent" higher tech level blueprints. You can hook up with R&D agents who will provide you with some materials needed for the invention process, then you stick your tech 1 blueprints in the lab and invent tech 2 blueprints to build from. Tech 2 is the standard fitting for all ships, so t2 stuff always sells The process is obviously a bit more complicated, and is heavily tied to exploration (and even moon mining), but as always you can just buy the stuff you need, you don't need to worry about making everything yourself.